


Newspaper Clippings

by plinys



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4592028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When his father asks what he means to do with all of them, his grin doesn’t falter, wild and foolish, Howard insists that he’s going to change the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Newspaper Clippings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ultron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultron/gifts).



> My word for this fic swap was "news" - I hope you enjoy the little fic I whipped up for you.

1

There’s a box of newspaper clipping that Howard keeps under his bed. Scientific articles, highlights of history, the sort of thing that will be remembered for generations to come. Each of them incredibly important to the ten year old that carefully cuts them free from the rest of the (useless) paper over his morning.

His mother doesn’t understand, but she will offer him a nickel from each of her paychecks at the factory to buy his papers with. She tells him to be a good Jewish boy, not to steal the papers, and not to cut pages out of library books. He listens to her about a third of the time.

Giving a good natured smile when he gets caught read handed as if to say ‘ _who me_ ’ before he’s shuffled into the other room to have a chat with his old man.

The box comes out from the bed, leafs of papers flipped through casually. The concern making his father’s face scrunch up in confusion. None of them understand what any of it means – a boy his age too bright for his own good, in a world where no one things it could even matter.

When his father asks what he means to do with all of them, his grin doesn’t falter, wild and foolish, Howard insists that he’s going to change the world.

“You’ve got high hopes, boy.”

(Years later, he’ll show old man another newspaper clipping. With a headline spelling out his name for the world to see. The letter he gets in reply, it not more than the ramblings of a confused old man, insisting he never knew a Howard _Stark_.)

 

2

Military encampments are easy enough to navigate, and over the past few years he’s become more familiar with them than he would have liked. He looks out of place, moving around in a fine pressed suit and slightly scuffed oxfords, there’s nervous glances from the men in uniforms.

Some of them might actually recognize him, the man from the World Exposition with the flying car. He’d heard enough playful jokes in the months following his slight miscalculation to last a lifetime. But most just saw him as another man in a suit.

Only one person in the camp greeted him with a nearly kind smile. Though she looked about as out of place there as he did.

 “I’ve got something for you?”

Peggy Carter, the prized jewel of the SSR and one of his dearest friends, rolls her eyes, familiar now with his antics. “Please tell me it’s a nice bottle of wine from France or somewhere equally exotic.”

“No such luck,” he replies, settling down beside her, “Though I could take you there if you like.”

He’s heading there at the first morning light, but he doesn’t mention that, because she won’t come along with him. Instead, he pulls a folded up slip of paper from his jacket pocket, a newspaper clipping that he couldn’t help but take, and offers it up to her as a prize.

 _The Captain America Tour to Be Expanded Overseas_ , reads the headline, and he tries not to feel insecure in the light of her smile. After all, the same sense of wonder that had been in her eyes that day had been reflected in his own.

 

3

The headlines which once proclaimed his glory, now read off harsh declarations: _Stark Man Hunt In Three States a_ nd _Captain America Ally Yet To Explain Weapons Sale._ He’s a wanted man, but not in the way he ever would have predicted.

“I’ll clear your name,” Peggy assures him, because she’s a pal like that, pulling the newspaper out of his hands and settling it down on the table top so that his visage no longer stares up at the world. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried in the slightest,” Howard says, with a wild grin that he’s practiced in a mirror since he was just a boy. The showman’s smile helps to distract from the sincerity in his face as he says, “I trust you.”

 

4

There’s no paper announcing the founding of SHIELD, such is the nature of a secret organization such as theirs, but there’s a letterhead with their newly minted logo, and the words _from the desk of Director Howard Stark_ on the top.

It’s means enough for a celebration.

They break out the good wine, take of their shoes, and he’s kissing her before he can even think about the repercussions of such an action. He knows, even as she presses back against him, lips wine red, that he isn’t her first choice not by a long shot, that this might just even be a onetime thing, but it’s worth the risk.

He’s waited long enough for this, waited for what seems like a life time.

So presses her up against the desk, scattering their carefully printed letterhead onto the ground, because there might not be another moment like this.

Kissing Peggy, he finds, is much better than any of the papers proclaiming is name in bold print.

 

5

_“I’m getting married.”_

The words still ring in his head hours after the announcement, Peggy grinning shyly at him around her wine glass (Peggy who has never looked shy in her life), he doesn’t have to ask who the lucky fellow is, already knows all too well.

When he says, “I didn’t realize you two were that serious,” he tries not to sound bitter, but it’s almost impossible when the woman he loves – always has – is marrying somebody else.

She either doesn’t notice his tone or does care to be bothered by his disapproval, and it’s hard for him to stay bitter, hard when she’s never looked this happy, since before Steve was lost to the artic.

He’ll get drunk at the wedding, sleep with three of the bridesmaids, then make a scene and earn her scorn for months to come. Later though, once the haze has worn off and all the remains is a newspaper with a wedding announcement printed on the top, he’ll pull out an old pair of scissors and take to the pages with bitter passion.

The last article he ever cuts free of its pages, is nothing more than a small note in the weddings and obituary section, proclaiming the marriage of one Margret Carter, to a man that isn’t Howard Stark.

 

 

 


End file.
